London Stock Exchange opens the doors to Nordic Cleantech Open finalists

It was no picnic to get everyone trough the security gates at the far end of Pater Noster Square, but it was worth the wait. Once in, participants to the more than sold out Nordic Cleantech Showcase were met by the overwhelming feeling of actually being the centre of attention at one of the world oldest financial trading houses.

The square that hosts the London Stock Exchange is full of cafes. Fittingly so, since the exchange was started by a small group of like minded businessmen who up till then used coffee houses to meet and trade shares in companies. Now home to some of the largest, most successful and dynamic companies in the world it was a very suitable place to present 9 selected expansion and 9 selected start-up opportunities from the Nordic cleantech sector.

Participants got straight into things with the selected Nordic Cleantech Open finalists lining the walls with their solutions. These companies, who all have disruptive innovations and target big markets, where introduced to some of the biggest investors on the European cleantech scene as well as a few American guests. We got a lot of feedback from investors on these companies and it is clearly very attractive business cases, suitable for more than a few of the participating investors.

Presentations on stage by 9 selected expansion stage companies followed. These were actors past commercialisation, now looking to expand their operations.

We concluded the day with Cleantech Scandinavia presenting the current state of the Nordic cleantech venture market, as 2010 figures point to a good year of deals, and seed investments taking off for the first time since 2007, but now at higher amounts.

Four panellists from leading European venture capital firms gave us their very straight forward and honest opinions on everything from companies presenting (on which they all wanted to meet again with more than on company), evaluations (on which very different opinions were voiced by the audience), what they really look for in a team (wanted attributes apart from track record – a certain stubbornness and inner compass), to Nordic experiences (culturally easy to work with, high quality teams).

Drinks all around sent investors, loaded with new questions based on the presentations, into renewed flurry of networking with entrepreneurs until the whole event eventually slowed down and LSE security staff lead us into a surprisingly warm London evening.

Very happy with this Nordic Cleantech Showcase we bid farewell for now and are hopeful that quite a few of these companies will see more of London and the UK market in the years to come, perhaps in the shape of a LSE ticker pointing up?